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zoemig 's review for:
Platform Seven
by Louise Doughty
I hadn't actually heard of Platform Seven by Louise Doughty before I picked it up for an online book club, but it sounded intriguing enough, not to actually purchase it but at least to borrow the audiobook. It's a novel that begins with a man killing himself by jumping in front of a train on Platform Seven, the same platform that Lisa jumped off of less than two years earlier. Her ghost watches him--but are they connected? And what really happened to Lisa? The book spends the next nearly 450 pages going into Lisa's history and the events leading up to her death.
Although Platform Seven has a supernatural element it's definitely more focused on the mystery and Lisa's ghost is just a vehicle for telling her story. That said, it's not really a mystery either. I don't know what it is really, except maybe a sad, meandering novel that barely managed to keep my attention long enough to finish it. Doughty definitely focuses on all the ordinary moments that make up a life, but this isn't literary fiction and there's not enough in the description or relationships to fuel a book this long. Most of the novel is dedicated to an awful, toxic, relationship which is not fun to read about but is clearly bad from the beginning so watching it continue to get worse is not much of a surprise and felt a bit repetitive at times. There are some atmospheric moments but I went into Platform Seven looking for suspense and there was very little of that. Overall, a disappointing read.
Although Platform Seven has a supernatural element it's definitely more focused on the mystery and Lisa's ghost is just a vehicle for telling her story. That said, it's not really a mystery either. I don't know what it is really, except maybe a sad, meandering novel that barely managed to keep my attention long enough to finish it. Doughty definitely focuses on all the ordinary moments that make up a life, but this isn't literary fiction and there's not enough in the description or relationships to fuel a book this long. Most of the novel is dedicated to an awful, toxic, relationship which is not fun to read about but is clearly bad from the beginning so watching it continue to get worse is not much of a surprise and felt a bit repetitive at times. There are some atmospheric moments but I went into Platform Seven looking for suspense and there was very little of that. Overall, a disappointing read.